“What would Elizabeth Bennet or Jane Eyre or Anne Shirley do?”

A reader has written to Slate asking for advice about her sophomore 'Daughter’s Teacher, the Misogynist'.

I enjoyed meeting her English teacher that night, until the last minute of his presentation. He seemed down-to-earth, funny, and thoughtful about what he was trying to accomplish with the books he has assigned this semester. But then a woman behind me raised her hand and said that she noticed all the works this semester are by male authors (Shakespeare, Salinger, etc.) and asked whether he would be teaching any works by women during the year. His response? “Yes, this semester there are dead white males all over the place.” Everyone laughed. “I’d really like to teach women authors, of course, but they’re hard to find. I keep reading works by women to find something to teach, and I’ll think I have one, but then I get to a passage and think, ‘Whoa, I’d get arrested if I taught this.’ Either that or they’re just not complex enough. So, I’m reading some things now that might work out, and I hope they do. We’ll see. I’ll let you know.”
My jaw dropped. There was no time to respond because the bell rang to indicate our session with him was over. I am appalled by this statement, and I’m paralyzed about what tone to take when I address the situation. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt and mute my outrage, as I express that I am “trying to better understand” their position, but in this case I don’t think I can pull that off with any sincerity.
I have considered taking his statement at face value by providing a list of the many female authors whose work is neither pornographic nor insufficiently complex—Edith Wharton, George Eliot, Zora Neale Hurston, Louise Erdrich, Amy Tan, Margaret Atwood, Sandra Cisneros, Ursula K. Le Guin, Virginia Woolf, the Brontë sisters (I could go on and on and on … ).

According to The Mancunion,

there is a certain tentativeness that is now applied to representations of the ‘foreign’ in older texts. Jane Eyre has a backdrop of slavery and Mansfield Park has plantations integral to its plot. These settings and themes are culturally representative of economic, social and political activity at the time. By re-reading these texts alongside literary theory as found in Said’s Orientalism, Spivak’s In Other Worlds or the works of Homi Babha, the problematic elements and prejudices codified can be analysed in relation to our society. (Shaheena)

The Young Folks reviews the book The Library of Lost Things by Laura Taylor Namey.

 Darcy has no idea how to talk to boys. She’s read more romances than she can count, but never participated in one. She constantly asks herself, “What would Elizabeth Bennet or Jane Eyre or Anne Shirley do?” (Abby Petree)

Scenestr interviews Sarah McLeod who plays Helen Burns and Bertha Mason in an upcoming production of Jane Eyre in Brisbane (Australia):

The Superjesus' Sarah McLeod stretches her newfound theatre legs in shake & stir's production of Charlotte Brontë's classic 'Jane Eyre'.
Sarah's role in 'Jane Eyre' will essentially be three-fold as she plays two onstage characters as well as composing the original score.
“I'm playing Helen [Burns], who is Jane Eyre's best friend when she is at Lowood Institution,” Sarah explains.
“Then I am playing Bertha [Mason] who is Mr Rochester's estranged wife who has turned mad and lives in the attic locked away from everybody and he tries to keep her a secret. I end up setting his house on fire and ripping Jane's wedding dress to shreds. I'm completely insane.”
Within literary critiques, Bertha is seen by some as Jane's 'dark double', a dichotomy Sarah sees reflected in her own personality.
“Actually it's really weird they've given me these two characters because Helen is really spiritual, calm, almost Buddhist in her mentality and outlook on life, and then there's the insane crazy woman, and I feel like it's the two sides of my character,” she says.
“I have this real calm, spiritual side but then I have this completely insane, absolute manic side of my brain that I cannot control. I feel like [the characters] are extreme versions of my extremities, so I can completely relate.” (Matt Innes)

RTBF (Belgium) selects some of this week's music releases, including

"Pas plus le jour que la nuit" d'Alex Beaupain
Le musicien, à qui l'on doit la bande originale du film "Les Chansons d'amour" de Christophe Honoré, s'offre un sixième opus, avec comme morceau titre "Pas plus le jour que la nuit". Inspirée par la littérature de Charlotte Brontë, rapporte les Inrocks, la chanson a été mise en image par le réalisateur Xavier Legrand ("Jusqu'à la garde"). (Translation)

Libération (France) features the same album.

Le titre [Pas plus le jour que la nuit] est emprunté à Charlotte Brontë, tiré d’une lettre à l’encre brûlante et douloureuse que la romancière écrivit à Constantin Héger, professeur belge dont elle était secrètement amoureuse. [...]
Charlotte Brontë téléportée au Palace 80, ça suffit à faire un style. (Christophe Conte) (Translation)

ScreenRant and Aullidos (Spain) reviews the film In the Tall Grass.

Yes, in the movie adaptation of In the Tall Grass, the grass manipulates not only space but time as well. The three parties who enter the tall grass are trapped in a time loop wherein they keep following each other's voices (or, in Travis' case, Becky's lost copy of Jane Eyre) into the field. (Hannah Shaw-Williams)

Poco antes de entrar en el campo de En la hierba alta (Vincenzo Natali, 2019) uno de sus protagonistas recoge del suelo un manoseado, casi deshecho ejemplar de Jane Eyre. Quizás usar de esta manera la obra maestra de Charlotte Bronte sea un guiño, un enlace: el del gótico clásico con el American Gothic y el del cine con la literatura. (Translation)

Más Reino Unido (a website for Spanish-speaking peopleHurricane Diaries.
living in the UK) tells about the play

Amanda, como autora y actriz, interpreta a Victoria, una mujer joven de Puerto Rico que se ha mudado a Londres en busca de una mejor vida y para vislumbrar la tierra de las Brontës y Jane Austen. (Translation)

A Next Shark contributor writes about how it was growing with Korean immigrant parents.

 We went to the local library so frequently that by middle school, I felt like I had read every single book in both the kids and teen sections. By 5th grade, instead of the “Baby-Sitter’s Club” books that my friends parents got for them at the book fair, my mom thought I was ready for books like “Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering Heights”. (Sylvia Kim)

CNBCTV18 recalls the fact that a lost manuscript by Charlotte Brontë surfaced in 2015.